The statements in this section merely provide background information related to the present disclosure and may not constitute prior art.
Automated design systems are used by designers and engineers to create circuits, devices, structures, or other items. One type of design system is a computer aided design (CAD) program. A CAD program for industrial design, for example, can be used to create a design of a structure such as a beam, mechanical system, mobile airborne platform part, automobile part, etc. As can be appreciated, different types of CAD systems can be used to create designs for any part or item.
As designs become more complex, the size of design data associated with each part or item can be large. For instance, each part may include a plurality of sub-parts. Each sub-part may include associated data attributes that define the part's dimensions, materials, etc. Accessing the data attributes in complex designs can be time consuming. For example, conventional CAD systems provide an expandable product tree structure for listing the parts, sub-parts, and associated attributes. Navigating this type of tree structure, where the tree requires expansion until a specific part is found, and then further expansion of this part to access the nodes that house the data attributes, is time consuming. Further, the expandable tree structure provides little or no means for filtering common data attributes.
Similarly, manufacturing design systems rely on the data associated with the parts, sub-parts, and data attributes to generate work instructions, process plans, etc. Accessing the plethora of data attributes via the manufacturing design systems can be just as time consuming. Thus, the need exists for a more efficient system that interrogates data attributes in a product development environment.